Blog Exercises: The Don’ts of Blogging

Did you know there is a Blogger’s Code of Conduct? It’s on Wikipedia. Initiated by Tim O’Reilly, it is as follows: Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments. Consider eliminating anonymous comments. Don’t feed the trolls. Take the […]

Welcome to the New Blog Exercises

Your doctor tells you to exercise. You tell yourself you need some exercise. You play Sudoku and other mind games to flex the brain. We all need exercise, even bloggers. In the past, my Blog Challenges have been well received but its time to update them. I used to call them challenges, then prompts, but […]

Managing Multiple Authors: Managing Writers in a Multiple Author Blog

In this series on managing multiple bloggers in WordPress, I want to now focus on the content, specifically managing the editorial voice and purpose of a site with multiple bloggers. There is a huge caveat to this topic. Every blog is unique, as are all the voices within it. It is often that uniqueness that […]

Taking Your Blog Off Topic

What happens when you take your blog off track and publish an off topic post? Do you ever take that risk? When you do, why do you do it and what’s the benefits or harm? In a two part series, Sam H, Editor of Football United, shared his insights on working with “hundreds of football […]

Disclosure Now Required on Blogs, Twitter, and Other Social Media Sites

With the news that the UK is cracking down on those blogging and tweeting for pay without disclosure, and California law making online impersonation potentially illegal, social media and blogging are taking a hit. In summary, if you pretend to be someone you aren’t, famous or not, or blog about a product or service for […]

Blogging Resources: Business and Professional Resources and References for Bloggers and Writers

As part of my ongoing series on blog resources, so far I’ve covered Blogging Resources and Sources to Help You Blog, Blog Resources for English Language and Blog Writing, and Blog Resources: Researching the Research, Finding the Facts, and Seeking Supporting Evidence. Today, I’m offering the resources I use for business and professional sources of […]

Bad-Behavior Continues to Give the Finger to Comment Spammers

The brilliant brain behind Bad Behavior, the comment spam fighter that “gives the finger to comment spammers” before they gain access to your blog, is Michael Hampton. Before I get more to bragging on my buddy, Michael, I’d like to announce that the latest update to Bad Behavior, version 2.09, has been released and version […]

Wrong Thinking: Accusing Blogroll Links Not Sploggers

There’s something interesting and alarming happening on Alex King’s blog. It seems that one or more websites using WordPress are spamming Yahoo! Answers. Because his site, and other WordPress developers and designers, are included in the blogroll by default in basic WordPress installations, people are accusing Alex King and other WordPress developers or spamming. Matt […]

One Year Anniversary Review: Blog Writing

Writing up the one year anniversary review of articles I’ve written about searching and search engines, I ran across this interesting bit I wrote in “How Google Ranks Websites”: Spelling is still important. Not that Google’s patented page ranking process includes a spell checker – words that are not recognized get dumped. If misspelled keywords […]

Genealogy Blog: Determining What Features I Want in My Blog

Before I can figure out how much this is going to cost as part of my blog budget, I need to know what I want, how much it will cost, and what I’m willing to pay for. To start, I need to look at the features I want in my blog. While I might want […]

US Federal Protection for Political Bloggers

The Blogging Journalist brought my attention to a CNET article, “Political Bloggers May Get Federal Protection” you should consider reading if you are pushing the freedom of speech issues or tackling political issues on your blog. The impact of this legislation might spread farther, so be warned and get involved: Bloggers would be largely immunized […]

Developing New Ways of Thinking about Blogging

In a recent story on NPR called Back Pain Treatments Can Be Tailor-Made, a comment caught my attention. Years ago, doctors recommended that patients go to bed and stay there in order to heal. That’s absolutely not the recommendation today. In fact, not moving at all could be the worst medicine. Fishman likens the process […]

Gossip Rules Memory

In an article from New Scientist, “The secret to soap opera addiction”, it appears that people are more interested in gossip than about their day-to-day lives. Humans are more interested in juicy gossip about their friends and acquaintances than the mundane details of their lives, so pay more attention to it We remember juicy gossip […]

Mean Spirited Comments and Blogging

Trolls. Flamers. Meanies. Vicious. Not Nice. Unkind. Rude. Inconsiderate. Nasty. Whining. Bitching. Moaning. Bastards. Where there are humans, you will find humans who seem to have more than their share of these personality traits. Blogging is no exception. Even the most non-controversial blogs, like this one, is the target of the blogging thug, mean spirited […]

Search Engine Site Submission Secrets

I write a lot about website development and how to make your site or blog as search engine friendly as possible. I wanted to share a few search engine site submission secrets I’ve learned over the many years. Be Prepared – You Never Know When a Search Engine Will Visit Remember, a search engine’s work […]